Course Outline: This three-credit course introduces students to basic legal and theoretical concepts related to the study of health law. Major topics include bioethical theories and their relevance to the law, medical malpractice, and the role of the courts in defining and applying standards of care. We will cover an array of interesting and challenging issues over the course of the semester, including the meaning of health, the nature of the physician-patient relationship, including privacy, access to care, and informed consent, public health, reproductive and genetic technologies, and end-of-life care. This class has a heavy discussion component and students are expected to come to class prepared to engage in an in-depth conversation about the assigned material. To that end, students enrolled in this course will become well-versed in the theory underlying the law and policy we study, as well as the black letter law.

Course Syllabus:

Course Notes: PROFESSOR MICHAEL S. EWER
E-mail: mewer@mdanderson.org

For the Foundational Issues in Health Law: Patient, Provider, Society and the Law class, we will follow the topics in the order they appear in the assigned textbook. A more detailed syllabus will be distributed during the first week of class.

During the first week of class we will go through Chapter 1 in detail. All participants should review the cases in Chapter 1 from the perspective of why they are important as well as to see how the law and medicine interact in a complex environment of science (medicine), law, government, ethics, administration, and economics. The course will touch on all of these disciplines to a greater or lesser extent, but will focus on the ever-increasing interaction of law and medicine.Additional handouts may be provided.

The goal of this course is to expose students to those issues that continue to raise concerns including (but not limited to):

Access to Care
The Doctor / Patient Relationship
Consent for treatment and The Informed Consent Process
The Rights of Patients to Limit the Extent of Treatment or to Request Treatment Beyond Recognized Therapeutic Guidelines
Standards of Care, and Failure of a Practitioner or an Institution to Meet Standards of Care
Rights of Patients and Research Facilities to Biologic Material and an overview of Human Subjects Research
Reproductive Rights and Responsibilities
Ethical Concerns in Health Care and End-of-Life Decisions
Evaluation and Credentialing of Healthcare Professionals

At any time current events topics may be introduced as well.

Registered students will be expected to come to class prepared sufficiently to be called upon to discuss cases, holdings, and potential legal fallout from important cases that we discuss throughout the semester.

Students will be evaluated by a three-hour open-book exam where class notes as well as the textbook are permitted, but will not allow the use of commercial outlines or review guides.

We are looking forward to a rigorous, fun, and educational semester. Do not hesitate to e-mail me if you have any questions.